Here it is, our holiday mission! As you'll see, we make use of letters from both Father and Uncle Crimbo here to set the mood, with a very special thanks for Bina, handler for Mary Kate, for helping me put together the town, description, and so on. We even open with some recaps of previous Crimbo-related AIL stories as well as recapping the last mission or two. As you'll see if you keep reading.

 
AiL timeline

 
For generations uncounted, mythical figures have brought joy and warm tidings to the children of this world.

This is true now and has been true since the days of earliest writings on both this world and worlds beyond.

Worlds beyond and dimensions beyond.

Not even a full year ago, Father Crimbo himself hosted a special St Boris Day celebration. As preparations unfolded for the joyous occasion one year ago, Uncle Crimbo returned with terrifying news; four demons from Hey Daze (the bosses of the 7-Eternal corner store) and Linnea (the Scream Queen) were teaming up with the mysterious Kwadlin in an attempt to kidnap Father Crimbo. Thanks to active adventurers of the time such as Honorburg's Cyber Sunset, Ireacan Zed Shinestone, Viking Konall Bearsmasher and many more, Father Crimbo was kept safe, and an invasion of slavers from overseas were turned back for the time being as well.

In appreciation of his own incredibly minor role in keeping Father Crimbo safe (IE, he told the Council of Loathing), Uncle Crimbo invited himself to stay with the good-hearted Father Crimbo and his elves. A couple of months ago (loosely), Uncle Crimbo's cold blooded determination and jealousy lead him to take (kidnap? enslave? recruit? promote?) several Crimbo elves and form his own headquarters opposite of Father Crimbo. Sassy Snake visited Father Crimbo's camp as this all unfolded last time.

Very recently, the Council of Loathing had sent Adventurers to investigate a mysterious force field which had appeared around Spookyraven manor, thought to be long abandoned. The adventurers were pitted against Lord Spookyraven, the Boss Bat, the Renaissance Giant, the winged yeti Groar, Baron Von Ratsworth and their minions and hired goons. Just when it looked like the battle would come down to an epic confrontation between Sir Fumblies and Lord Spookyraven himself, the Council stepped in to offer a deal to the Somber Six.

Turns out Uncle Crimbo was behind the intervention. So basically, the fight was called off. Kind of anticlimactic, really. Although many asked, no answers were given on the Council's decision nor Uncle Crimbo's involvement in all of this.

Just a little over two weeks later, flyers began appearing around adventurers' campsites, homes, and clan headquarters. Printed on the flyer was an image of a small town that had been clearly transformed to look more like "ye old renaissance fair." In front of the town are images of Uncle Crimbo, the Renaissance Giant (of course), a couple of penguins, King Mtiger, Prince Blahking and random others who were too small to be seen. The painting looked to be comprised of oil paints, markers, watercolors, crayons and booze. Heavy use of booze, from the smell of the image. And yet, it was impossibly beautiful, almost like it could suck you in at any moment if you stared closely enough while being inebriated by exactly the right booze. (And also, presumably, if you believe hard enough - and were inherently magically gifted.)

It depicted colorful tents, clay buildings, archery displays and a gum stand for poor children.

The flyers appeared on the side of a rather large personalized (but still mostly random) gift basket. These gift baskets contained many but not all of the following items; various assortments of booze, weapons made out of Crimbo wrapping paper, board games, "I hate holidays" ugly holiday sweaters, bow ties made out of cat hair, Crimbo season novelties, random pet food for familiars the receiver probably didn't own and other naughty and/ or random and / or useless and / or modern gifts. Oh, and each one of the baskets had a tiny Flask of peppermint schnapps in it, 'cause Uncle Crimbo is flappin' awesome, that's why.

The flyer, of course, was a personal note from Uncle Crimbo.

Uncle Crimbo @ "Hot New Thing"

Dear festive holiday you's peoples; Alright, lemme tell you who I are. I mean, who are I am. I'm Father Uncle's Crimbo. Wait, erase that. Did you erase it? Good, you no goodnick son of.. Put this instead. I'm Uncle Crimbo, the bruver to that no gold ducking brother. I mean, Faver Crimbo. What? Oh, lemme try again. Brother to that no good looking Father Crimbo. Anyway, after I saved his worthless life, he invited me to join him where he lived, but he immediately put me to work managing elves. Fine, so I like bossing people around and I's good at it. I've. I'm. Whatever, just fix it in editing later. We are editing this later, right? Good. Father Crimbo's been doing this thing for ages now. hic Like, a long time. hic He's hic done an okay hic job but he'sh does the same thin' every year. hic Never tries or does anythin' different. Why can't he'sh try new things and in different ways? I bets I could does better or at least bring his'h ideas into our time period instead of living thru past generations but even when mom hugged him more, I was a big boy and I brought in all my toys out of the rain and. . . I never got anything fun. Always clothes, always handmade stuff, and oh yea stuff for school and school wasn't even invented yet. How boring is that? What? Oh, right, sorry, got off on a rant there. Okay, kids. We're doing something new. Different. Exciting. We're all sick and tired and sick of being sick and tired of the same thing year after year, over and over. Crimbo is gonna be bigger and better than ever! More exciting, kid. More fun. More commercially exploitable! I've worked with elves who want a better Crimbo so the first thing on the agenda is to improve the small town I have been working on. The tents will be changed into real buildings that won't blow away in the wind or fill up with rain and snow. I will have actual stores for the vendors, blacksmith shop, tailor shop, and market. Best of all- overpriced coffee with foam at every corner! This can all be done if all the elves and citizens work together. I know we are all happy to work together to make a better Crimbo. Please note that no force was used in this takeover, er … arrangement. So come down, and meet the happy elves and happy citizens and happy town who're all really happy to help me build a better Crimbo for tomorrow. And it all starts here, with Crimbo in Summer! I'm renting a place in a little bar with a spare room called "the Shack." Come by and learn more about helping make this holiday the greatest place on show!   hic     hic

Attached to that is another note in way too big writing.

Renaissance Giant, "Fair Giant of Yonder Days Gone by"

Greetings  little peoples, dost thou enjoyest holidays? I hateth them and hopeth ye haveth a  horrible holiday. I am happieth to see how mucheth better the faireth is this year. Everyoneth of you shouldest cometh and enjoyeth yourselfths. Thereth be many fun events including the Crimbo Pie Eating contest, proveth your strength at the Archery Contest, or your horsemanship in the Jousting Contest. Cometh on, cometh one and cometh all and enjoyeth the celebration.

That piqued the attention of many ambitious adventurers. Of course, if those adventurers left immediately, they might have missed a second gift basket which showed up just the next morning. And if they left the morning before, they probably missed both letters and will feel quite foolish when they return.

This gift package was simple and uniform for every single adventurer. And some non adventurers.

Each gift wrapped package came with a traditional Crimbo fruitcake & rum combo, a piece of traditional Crimbo candy (fudge, pecan, what have you) and a very old elf-made Crimbo toy. Maybe it's an handsewn dolly or a metal & wooden meatcar or a wobbly wooden wagon. Heck, maybe it's a ball in a cup, stick horse, clay doll, dollhouse, pack of six coloring sticks or a clay ocarina. You get the point, right?

Anyone, it's exactly three items which come in an exactly-three-shaped box designed to hold exactly three items, counting "Crimbo fruitcake & rum combo" as a single item. And a note.

A note that smells like peppermint, old people, and an old detective mystery novel.

Father Crimbo, "the original"

Ho! Ho! Ho! Young people still like traditional catch phrases you know. I don't care what our marketing team says. I don't know what the hub-bub is about tradition. Tradition is a good thing and has been the source of many of the things we do on Holidays. Maybe this new town of Uncle Crimbo's needs to be examined and make sure that we are not getting duped or mislead. Summer Crimbo!! What an abomination!! I don't trust Uncle Crimbo and he is messing with tradition. We know some of my disloyal former reindeer are serving as his bodyguards, so we're setting up Father Crimbo's HQ in the Gnomad's camp. Let me tell you, those people can really create stuff with their plexiglass outfits and their cogs and flangs and their springs. When I was a kid, the old folks used to say "Them Gnomers, they were born with cogs on their feet, flangs for hands, and the boys had motor oil in their. . ." What's that? What do you mean that joke and the term "Gnomers" are considered speciesists these days?! Fine, just delete it, okay? So start at the part we're going to use Gnomers' backwoods for a camp. Okay FINE, just tell them we got the Gnomish people to agree to let us use their headquarters, and we'll forget about those comments okay? I gotta get a nap now, so you just rewrite it however you want. I get cranky without my four naps a day, kids. Ho, ho, ho, to all a good nap! - Father Crimbo (and staff)

Notes

Hmm.. the notes seem to be referring to a town just past the southern border. This might bear investigating.

After you investigate, adventurers, it'll be time to choose a side. Will you side with Father Crimbo or Uncle Crimbo?

Father Crimbo will want you to prove that Uncle Crimbo is up to no good, and he doesn't care that much if you find something or make something up. In his mind, it's playing the odds. If you can think of something his drunken brother might be up to, he probably is, so he needs to be stopped.

Uncle Crimbo just wants to pull off a successful holiday. Or that's what he will try very hard to convince you of. Of course, if it turns out he forcibly took over this town or is enslaving his help or the locals, that might make his whole operation seem shady somehow.

But the odds against it being something horrible must be at least, a hundred to one.

Okay, maybe more like, five to three or something.

See mission info for more information and rewards info, now that they're up. Like, a month late or so.

(Rollover writing assisted by Binajane, especially the 'letters' parts)

I'm very proud of the work Bina and I did on this mission, starting right here with the Rollover. Of course, I also like how it combines a holiday theme with Somber Six member the Renaissance Giant.

We had a lot of fun with the letter and with the town, as you can see. Plus we got a pretty cool mission logo, hehe. On the downside, there's some big AIL names we see little to none of in this mission but thankfully, the combinations of Becky Joy and SnowCatCuties came up pretty big this mission as did the combination of Mary Kate O'Toole and Jarlsboris Wildfall. In fact, we'll get to Wildfall / Mary first and then have Snow & Becky second!